Almost all digital and image display technologies rely on a technique known as Raster Image Processing (RIP) to produce images on a passive or active display medium, such as paper or an electronic screen. A digital printer's imager and caching module can be configured prior to the start of a job and have limited capabilities to adjust the way each page is processed. Every page of a long document will possess the same parameters applied even if the parameters are not optimal. This is especially poor for variable information (VI) jobs that a print shop or print customers believe should RIP at a fast rate. There are some dynamic adjustments implemented today, but they are quite limited. For many print jobs it has been found that the original configuration is not optimum and would benefit if parameter adjustments were made. Today's configuration changes are accomplished manually between jobs, via trial-and-error printing, or as a result of a customer complaint.
Print on demand (POD) is the printing process that delivers exactly and only what the customer wants, when the customer wants it, at the place where it is needed. Equipment manufacturers have made great strides to develop special technology to meet the “on demand” needs of customers. Traditional equipment manufacturers as well as new players or those that have adapted digital pre-press technology to printing technology are racing through product development cycles introducing new technology. Technology continues to change rapidly.
An example of a prior art RIP technology is disclosed in United States Patent Application Publication No: 2005/0058481 to Christiansen et al, which published on Mar. 17, 2005 and is entitled “Selectable Control of Raster Image Processor.” U.S. Patent Publication No: 2005/0058481 generally describes digital printing technologies that often rely on raster image processors (RIPs or RIP engines) to convert vector image data to raster, or bit-map, data, which allows a printer to render the image as a pattern of dots or pixels. One problem with RIPs such as that disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No: 2005/0058481 is that such technologies offer limited communications capabilities and can in some circumstances reduce the effective processing speed.
Another example of a prior art RIP technology is disclosed in United States Patent application Publication No: 2003/0076535 to Prosi, which published on Apr. 24, 2003 and is entitled “Banded compositor for variable data.” U.S. Patent application Publication No: 2003/0076535 generally describes a method and apparatus for Variable Data Printing that adds performance requirements to a raster image processor (RIP) memory optimization and which also employs memory bands within the page composition process. Documents containing both recurring elements as well as non-recurring elements are sorted into element lists depending on their frequency of recurrence and their layering position. The recurring elements are retained in rasterized form, while the non-recurring elements are rasterized as they are used in output memory. One pass assembly in raster image processing of the elements occurs when the recurring elements are placed into memory and the variable elements are RIPped on the fly.
Based on the foregoing, it is believed that a need exists for an improved image processing apparatus, methodology and system thereof. For many print jobs, it has been found that the original configuration is not optimum and would benefit if parameter adjustments were made. It is believed by the present inventor that the reconfiguration of DFE and caching modules as disclosed herein can optimize RIP performance, thereby overcoming the problems associated with the prior art.